Promises
by 58anir
Summary: Natasha and Clint remember their promises to each other...
1. Chapter 1

Natasha/Clint:

He first saw her (mainly because of her long red hair and her age, God she was just a kid) walking through the entranceway into the Budapest Opera house as he lay on the roof with his bow and arrows. Quietly focusing on her slim back through his lens, he noticed how she moved gracefully like a panther. She wore a shimmering silver gown, and Manolo stilettos (he had no idea why he even knew the brand), and as she strode into the Opera House, Barton wondered if the stiletto heels held actual stilettos. In his ear he heard Phil Coulson's voice asking if Clint had spotted the Widow yet. As Clint was about to respond, he heard voices, both male and female yelling over the howling winter wind. Quickly running over to the area where the voices came from, he saw Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow fighting a man with only a knife in her hand. As Barton watched, he noticed that the man had a knife as well, a brutal twisted metal spike. As he crouched behind a corner, he saw the man plunge his knife towards Black Widow's back. On his feet almost immediately Clint was about to yell a warning to Natasha, when the knife slid through the fabric of her dress and into the Widow's back. The man staggered and fell to the snow coating the roof with an arrow plunged into his neck. Clint had already run over to where Romanoff lay and radioed for a Quinjet and medics. The Widow was lying motionless on the snow with a red stain blossoming beneath her. He saw that she was still conscious and carefully scooped her up from the snow. She tried to punch him, but he simply held her closer and tried to stop the blood flowing from her back that was dripping onto the floor.

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Back on the Helicarrier in the med bay, Hawkeye instantly told the Black Widow that he was calling her Tasha from then on. She smiled weakly, as thought this was the first gift she had ever received that she didn't need to pay back before falling back into a light sleep. He looked at her in a strange sort of confusion, they were seperated by only 3 years in age; she was twenty, he was twenty-three. However the Widow looked so vulnerable lying in the hospital bed, that Barton made the promise of a lifetime, that he would protect her until he died. The next month Coulson filled both of them in on their first mission together: Budapest.

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Present Day:

10:30 pm. Clint was thrashing again, tangled up in the sheets. Natasha rolled over. She hadn't slept for the last few nights, given Thor's consistent snores drifting thorugh the walls and Barton's nightmares. For the sixth time that week she put her arms around Cint and held him as he unconsciously relaxed against her. His eyes flickered open, as he slowly came back to reality. "What was it Clint?" "N-nothing...Tasha its fine, just go back to sleep." " Stop treating me like I'm stupid" Natasha hissed at him, "You've been having nightmares for the past 3 months!" "Sorry Nat, its just...I keep thinking about Budapest." "Clint, that was 2 years ago. Its in the past." "I still can't help it, I still wake up feeling the same way I felt lying on the pavement outside that Hungarian cafe, while you were next to me begging me not to die..."

Swept up in a world of memories, Romanoff remembered Budapest, sitting in outside that cafe with th blue and yellow striped awning, laughing with Clint, watching in shock as he slumped over the table, red already staining his shirt. She had been in shock yet had still grabbed her gun and shot the sniper. As the civilains around them scattered, she had layed Barton down on the pavement. Begging him not to die, she had radioed for help and tried to stem the blood flow. The last thing he had said before passing out was "Tasha". At the time she had been 27 and he had been 30. Back on the Helicarrier, she remembered seeing Clint lying in a hospital bed attachd to tubes.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Natasha woke to the smell


End file.
